The Magical Realm
by Animefreak99-06
Summary: Seiji and Touma are elves, who have to team up with a human named Ryo, and find two other creatures to help them defeat Arago. AU.
1. A Brief Explaination of Things

**Disclaimers:** I don't own Yoroiden Samurai Troopers. Only five character that appear in this story are mine. (Soo-Yung, Yui, Sakura, Kasumi, and Mara, characters from 'Cursed Maidens' that's all.) The others are just filler characters. I, **Animefreak99-06,** would like to deeply thank the wonderful writing duo **Mirror and Image** for being so kind to let me borrow a few of their ideas for this story. Without their consent, I would not be writing this story. **Thank you two ever so much. **(Turns toward their website and bows to them.)** I only hope I don't disappoint the two of you**, (Turns back to the readers, bows and continues talking.) **or any of the readers who were curious enough to read this story.** Word of warning, the characters will be from different races. Seiji and Touma are elves, Shuu is a gargoyle, Shin is a merman, Ryo is human. Shiten is half shape-shifter/ half fox (My twisted version of a kitsune.), Naaza is half shape-shifter/ half snake, Rajura is a shapeshifter, Anubisu is a werewolf. Other characters from the story will be shape-shifters as well. My characters will be written as such, Soo-Yung and Yui are elves, Sakura is a human and Kasumi and Mara are shape-shifters.

The Magical Realm

Chapter 1 A Brief Explanation of Things

The young woman walked slowly towards the desk in the middle of her father's library/meditation room/den. She knew she shouldn't be here, but for some reason something in this room was calling to her. The light of the early morning was shining on the floor of the wall-less room. Well that's not true, there were walls, on all four sides of the room, but there were large windows on three of the walls. The fourth wall had a door, which at this time was slightly ajar. She hadn't completely shut the door, but she wasn't really paying attention to it anyway. Something was calling to her, and that's all she cared about.

As she made her way to the desk, she saw, what she thought was a strange glow illuminating from one of the books piled on his desk. That was what she reached for and picked up. She held it in one hand and opened it with the other. Holding it with both hands, she started reading it. After a few minutes, she realized she was reading the journal of the 'High and Wise Leader'. The head of the elven clan she had been born into, and although she really wanted to stop reading, she couldn't pry her self away. So she continued reading, even though she knew she was going to get a lecture from both the leader and from her oldest brother Touma.

She was truly impressed with the writing style the leader wrote things down. He seemed to write things down in detail, stopped mid-sentence and then, for no apparent reason, skipped to another completely different topic. She continued reading, the topics were mostly about the different races of their world. She read these topics aloud.

"Vampires. Third youngest race. Vampires them selves are not **always** evil beings, in fact a few of them were and still are very kind and polite to the other races. Sadly however, they are the eldest of their race. The younger and most recently turned among their rank, seem only to enjoy tormenting all the creatures and beings they come across. The method they use to enlarge their ranks is to bestow three bites to the victim. We call it a bite, they call it, a 'Kiss of Death'. And once the victim has been bitten three times, a small amout of their own blood is given to their victim, which then procedes to kill and change the victim into the newest member. While I do realize why they do this, or at least why they feed, it baffles and angers me beyond belief, to see them just going from town to town, village to village, just slaughtering innocent creatures and other beings. Once the eldest of their ranks choose to do something about this, there well be a world of pain placed upon the younger members." The young elf maiden stops reading and turns the page, hoping to read more about the dark beast called vampires, but instead, sees the next page is about gargoyles. She giggles a little, before continuing to read aloud.

"Gargoyles. A very strange race. I'm sorry for writing so, because, to each other, we are all very strange races. With that being said, I will now return to what I was originally writing. Anyway, gargoyles are one of the four eldest races of our world. They are said to have been made from the earth and stones. Wether they were or not, I don't really see as important. But I do know that they are a very strong, determined creature. They turn into big, hulking creatures with wings and can fly a great distance, however can only do so at night. They change into this creature like form when the sun sets at night. However, dispite popular belief, instead of turning into stone statues, they turn into beings that look almost like humans. The only differance is that the gargoyles have mark, or tattoos all over their arms and legs. There are no tattoos on their faces, and only afew decorate their chests and backs. They transform into human-like beings at sunrise and change back into their original forms at sunset. Their skin, wings and tail are impossible to cut, so it is near impossible to hurt or kill one of them. The only way one would be able to inflict damage is to injure them while they are in human form. Why one would want to hurt one of them is beyond me. Seeing as how they are very kind and curious. They like to eat as it takes a fairly large amount of food to sustaine their large form, more so when they fly a long time without rest, or when they in being pursued." The next sentence begins talking about merpeople. With a sigh, she continues to read, still reading aloud, even though there is no one else in the room.

"Merpeople. The second kindest race and another of the four eldest races. Humans like to say that a merperson looks like a cross between a large fish and a human, elves themselves like a cross between a large fish and an elf. There is truly only one physical differance between humans and elves. No make that two, the first is that our ears are slightly larger and more pointed, then a human's ears, and the second is that we are more fair, dare I say more attractive looking then the humans? Well most of us are more attractive then humans, however there have been quiet a few humans who were more beautiful or handsome then we. Ah, but I fear I have strayed from my original train of thought." At this, the elf maiden can only laugh to herself. Their 'High and Wise Leader' is, what appeared to be, extremely scatter-brained. After finally calming down. She continues to read.

"Now back to the merpeople. Wether half fish and half human or elf, it doesn't really matter. They are graceful beings and can handle any situation thrown at them, unless someone catches them into a net and hauls them onto land. They need to stay in the water to survive. Should they be captured and dragged onto land, if they are unable to breath water in through their gills they will most likely die by suffication within five minutes. That is their only weakness." She turns the page knowing that there has to be more to it than that. But heaves a sad sigh as she sees that the next page is about elves.

"Elves. The fifth oldest race in our worlds history. We elves are very proud, not only of our appearances, but of our very existince. We are truly vain, in that most of us, at least 95 percent of us, seem to have forgotten that we are **not** the superior to the other races, as well as that very same percentage seems to have forgotten about God creating us and allowing us to walk among the other races of this world. They walk around and forget that there is a being much higher than us, that can, if he so chooses, strike us down in an instant. While we have forgotten about him, we haven't forgotten that we elves, besides having larger, pointer ears than humans, also always have brightly colored hair. Be it blonde, pink, purple, or bright blue, it is always a very bright color." She stops reading and looks at one of the two braids her hair is always pulled into, and stares at the pale pink color of it. Then she picks up reading where she left off. Much to chagrin, she sees that the next topic is a compilation of recipes for medicines and salves. She turns the next few pages and is just about to close the book and walk aout of the room, when a folded piece of paper falls out and lands on the floor. She marks the page it fell from and reaches down to pick it up. She notices it's the same writing as the rest of the journal, so without hesitation, starts to read it. The title of this topic is different then the ones she would expect the leader of their clan to be writing about.

"The Fire Child." She stares at the piece of paper for a few seconds, thinking. She had never heard of anyone called fire child. She shrugged and continued reading. " The fire child is a very gifted child. This particular child is the only one in the whole of this world who can manipulate the element of fire. The first fire child was born some where between 2,000 and 2,250 years ago. He and four others children were born with the ability to use and temperarily control the five elements. At that time, a very power hungry shapeshifter, whose name was Arago, killed the king and queen of the shape-shifters wanting only to rule over the clan of shape-shifters. The princess, whose name was Kayura, gathered a rather large group a soldiers and drove Arago and over a hundred of his followers and supporters out of the kingdom. Arago became king anyway and declared war on the young princess and her followers and supporters. After war was declared, Kayura stood before her people and stated that all those who wished to stay out of this war should leave now."

"A short time after, there were three clans. One clan that was almost entirely female, ruled by Kayura, another that was almost entirely male was rulled by Arago and the third was a mixture of male and female, so as to keep the shape-shifters from completely dying out. Around the time this war broke out The five children mentioned above were born. When the five were of age to fight they had become involved in this war. They sided with Kayura and, planned to use a sneak attack to catch Arago off guard and defeat him, thus ending this senceless war. The fire child, however was not able to fight Arago. Somehow a shape-shifter was able to place the fire child under mental control for his master. If I'm not mistaken, his name was Badamon. Anyway, apparently, having lost his parents as a small boy and being shunned for his gift had somehow caused him to grow up bitter and he was easily controled into killing two of his comrades, the ones born able to use water and earth. As he turned to kill the other two, they realized that, as a human, he had been too weak to resist the evil of Arago's palace. And they had to kill him."

"The fire child, although being a skilled warrior and master of fire, stood absolutely no chance against the two who could control wind and light. The two were unable to complete their mission to defeat Arago, however, they did succed in almost completely destroying all of Arago's forces before they left. Never to be seen by the outside world again. In the mean time, about every two or three generations a new fire child is born. The fire child of the new generation, once of age to fight, will try to fight Arago or his forces because of his evil, unjust ways, and always becomes possessed or is killed before any action has occured."

"However, I sense a change in power, Arago has alligned himself with several hundred vampires and several dozen werewolves. Numerous trolls have joined his forces, as well as numerous half breeds. The half breeds themselvesbeing half animal or human and half shape-shifter. The change in power I sense could be the beginning of a war that could consume numerous innocent lives, human, elf, merperson. There is one hope however. I have descovered from a friend of mine, that there is a young boy who was born from the clan of warrior/mystics."

"The clan of the "Ancients", this boy is said to have the gift of foresight, he is also said to have the ability to understand animals. I paid a visit to the village this boy was from, I have also seen what this boy looks like. He is about nine years old. And for a human, he has an inner strength that very few of even the eldest of us can not touch. However this boy didn't catch my interest merely because of those gifts. No, it's his other gift that caught my eye, the flame shaped birthmark on his shoulder, the mark that proves that he is this generation's fire child."

"The boy with his long raven-black hair, and tiger blue eyes. His name is Sanada Ryo. He and two surviving elemental users must find the other two new elemental users. For the first time since the first fire child betrayed his comrades, have the users of water and earth elements been born. It is a sign that Arago must be stopped, for he has already overpowered Kayura, and forced her and her followers to flee for their lives. Now that he has beaten Kayura, he wants to rule over all of the world. God has granted the use of these abilities to the five of them to stop Arago. And I fear that there may be several who may be lost to this. All I can do is wait, and pray that when the time comes for them to fight, God will give them the strength and guidance to defeat Arago."

She finishes reading and re-places the folded peice of paper to where she found it to have come from. She closes the book and lays it back down where she found it and heads back towards the door. And sees that at least two hours have passed since she entered. She exits and closes the door, only then noticing her best friend and constant companion Yui standing there next to the door. Yui raises her head so that her pale purple bangs slide out of the way of her brown eyes. She is wearing a casual dark purple dress (that looks like a sleeve-less kimono, there are no sleeves on her dress, instead there are sleeve cuffs that begin just above the elbow) and has her bow in one hand and a quiver full of arrows strapped onto her back.

"Lady Soo-Yung, the leader would like to see you as soon as possible. I would have called to you sooner, but I didn't want to interupt you. So I waited here for you to finish your reading. And may I add that you have a very good voice. You should read aloud to people more often." She said as her serious face quickly became a big beautiful smile. Soo-Yung didn't like the look Yui had on her face and could feel a huge sweatdrop slide down her head. She turned to go across the rope bridge to get to her room on the other side. Soo-Yung went across first and then Yui, even though Yui, being the oldest of the two should have went first.

Yui was engaged to Soo-Yung's eldest brother, Touma. They should have been married once he and Seiji had completed their mission to destroy Arago, but after returning, they locked themselves in side their respective rooms and only come out to eat and practice. She had hardly seen either of them during the first three or four hunrded years. After that they had come out more often, but hardly ever spoke to any one for the next several hurdred years. Infact it was only the birth of his youngest sister, Soo-Yung, just 108 years ago that had caused him to return to his old self.

They had reached the other side and were now walking down the short hallway to the next rope bridge. Yui looked down and remembered they were 80 ft above the ground. Soo-Yung has reached the room at the far end of the bridge and is waiting for Yui to catch up to her. It was then that Yui noticed Soo-Yung was wearing her favorite red dress. (Red Manderin dress with short sleeves and one slit going from her feet to her knee. Both elven maidens are wearing flat shoes the same shade as their hair, pale pink and light purple, respecfully.) And she withdraws her sword and sword scabbard from her small beaded red belt. Removing a small piece from the end of the sword hilt she draws the sword, twirls the sword around, places the hilt to the hollow end of the scabbard, and with a small click locks the two together. The end result has now turned the sword and scabbrad into a naginata, or long handeled sword. She and Yui enter the room and bow down to the figure in the middle of the room. Soo-Yung lifts her head slightly before saying,

"You wished to see me, Father?"

Whew, that chapter was long. Thank you for putting up with me and my nonsense. And Thank you once again for reading this story. **And a very special thanks to Mirror and Image. I am very grateful that the two of you allowed me the chance to write this story. **Domo Arigato Gozimasu. Ja Na for now, Animefreak99-06 signing out.


	2. Search and Rescue Mission

Domo Arigato Gozimasu Minna-san. (Author bows numerous times to her readers.) Thank you so very much, I can't believe it, you like it. You really like it. Thank you **Mirror and Image **and **emeraldteardrops** for your kind reviews. (Bows to the three ladies mentioned just now. Thanks ladies.) I only hope you and everyone else who likes this story aren't at any time disappointed. As a side note: I hope everyone doesn't mind me putting my own characters in my story. Disclaimers: I don't own Samurai Troopers. I only own Soo-Yung, Yui, Sakura, Mara and Kasumi. Once again, I thank **Mirror and Image **for giving me permission to use a few of their ideas, I am very grateful. And give them full credit for their wonderful ideas and plot lines. Thanks. Oh and one final thing, there is a reason for me giving info for some of the different races. When Seiji, Touma, and Ryo team up, they will come into contact with the different creatures and those creatures will give some more info on their behaviors and histories.

The Magical Realm

Chapter 2 Search and Rescue Mission

Touma was furious, and Seiji, being his best friend for over 2,250 years, could tell when he was furious. Touma was very close to breaking the skin on his palms where his fingernails were tightly clamped. If his grip was any tighter, he would have four little cuts where his nails had been balled up. Seiji knew to stay a safe distance from Touma when he was about to explode, and the fact he could temperarily control wind always made Touma even more dangerous. So Seiji knew he would leave him to fume for a few minutes, than he would talk to him.

Oh well, so much for that plan. Yui came running up to the two of them, and bowed. Touma instantly relaxed the his fists and calmed down at her mere presence and Seiji silently thanked Yui. After all that time, Touma still loved her. She, Soo-Yung, and himself were the only ones who could calm Touma down when he was angry. The calm was short lived, however when she lifted her head to speak.

"The 'High and Wise Leader' wishes to speak with the two of you, immediately. It sounded very urgent." 'Damn. This can't be good. It's at least 11:56 at night. This bodes badly.' Seiji thinks to himself. Yui leads the two back to the room of the leader. Soo-Yung is there and she has her head hung in sadness. Seiji sighs and thinks,' It's going to be a long night.'

It been three hours since they were called to see the leader. She closed the door behind them and waited patiently outside for them. She sighs as she hears Touma raise his voice yet again. Soo-yung had gotten scolded earlier that morning, but strangely, the leader had only told her that she was forgiven, and she was only to enter that room and/or read anything in that room if she had permission. She wasn't punished, only discouraged. The whole meeting had taken five minutes, at most. And for the next twelve hours, she was free to do whatever she wanted. Than at 11:50 she was called back to the leaders room. Then Touma and Seiji had been called there and apparently Soo-Yung had forgotten her eldest brother was away for the day and had only just returned that night when she was summoned. The leader told Touma and that was when drama started.

"You know better than to enter into any room without permission. You may be the youngest of our clan, but you aren't stupid. Dammit, what were you thinking, Soo-Yung?" Touma yelled. And Yui couldn't help but think, 'Poor Soo-Yung.' However, it seemed that she was tired of getting yelled at when the leader had let her off the hook, which he had said several times since telling Touma. He didn't want to tell Touma, but as the leader, he had to tell certain members of the clan, when any thing had happened to their family members. Well, she would only take so much, and her eldest brother had pushed her too far.

"Will you just shut up, for ONE minute and give someone else a chance to talk? I now you're furious, but I don't care any more." Silence fell over the four in the room. Yui almost fell of the edge of the balcony walkway outside when Soo-Yung had snapped. Yui stood by the door and just stared at it with a dumbfounded look on her face. 'So much for _poor_ Soo-Yung. That was definately unexpected.' It took a few seconds for Soo-Yung to realize what she had done. She immediately turned a deep red and bowed her head in embarassment.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, the reason I yelled like that so I could get your attention. The leader gave me my punishment earlier. And, the reason I went in there in the first place was, well, because I, uh, I felt something calling to me. I went in there and I felt something drawing me to it. I'm very sorry, but the leader told me, he knew it was just a matter of time before someone went in there to investagate. And I just happened to be the one who went in there, so, just hush." Soo-Yung said as she raised her head to look at Touma. The leader was smiling at her bravery for standing up to her brother, Seiji had his eyes closed and looked content with what had just happened, Touma looked stunned, and Yui was angered. Not at the outburst, but because someone had the brass to try and interupt the meeting that was taking place.

At the moment Soo-Yung was trying to apologize to Touma, three other elves quickly strode up to the door, which Yui was guarding. They said to move out of the way, and that was why Yui was mad. She told them that they would have to wait, but they didn't listen. Her bow sang loudly a few seconds later, as she fired a warning shot.

"If you're going to be this rude, than at least wait for me to announce you." she says as she turns toward the door to slowly open it. She sticks her head in to see Soo-Yung was hugging her brother. Yui slimed before saying, "Pardon me leader, but there are three very rude elves, asking to speak with you right now." She waits for him to acknowledge her statement. He looks to Soo-Yung, Touma, and Seiji, who turn to leave. But the leader tells them,

"Wait you three. I have a feeling you will need to be present for this, you to Yui. Tell them to come in." Yui bows and motions for the three to enter. After everyone has been situated in the room, Yui closes the door behind all of them. The first of the eleves begins to talk.

"'High and Wise Leader', we have just received word of a vampire attack upon a human village, some 50 miles north of here. And from what we've heard, there appear to be quite a few vampires among the numbers. And there is a good chance there could be numerous lost lives." That got everybody's attention, but the leader, suddenly looked quite pale.

"'Human village, some 50 miles north of here', you say? Oh, no, this is bad. Are three of you absolutely certain of this?" He said as he looked to the three. They all nodded, and Yui thought she could see, was it panic, in his eyes? 'This can't be good.' she thought to herself. "Alright, Seiji, I want you and Touma to go to this village and investigate. You will leave in an hour, so that you arrive there at dawn. Look for survivors, as many as you can." Touma became angry again, and Seiji felt his own blood boil as well. 'Humans? He has got to be kidding. Why even bother trying to rescue them? They're weak anyway, and stupid if they aren't smart enough to stay away from the borders of the vampire domain.' He was bought of his thoughts as a small yet strong hand made a fast connection with his face. He looked up to see Soo-Yung was glaring at him, oops, he had forgotten she could read minds.

"How dare you think like that, just because they live shorter lives than us, they're insignifigent (Did I spell that right?) creatures. And besides that, you were told to do something, and you were rude enough to question it. You should be ashamed of your self, Seiji. Warrior of Light." Oooohhhh, that wasn't good. Once he heard his name spoken like that, a way he almost never went by nowadays, he bowed his head in shame. 'Damn, she's right. I really should be ashamed of what I thought. I was given a task. And I will complete it. She really knows how it make someone realize what they've done wrong. I only wish I hadn't told her my old title.' He looked up to see Soo-Yung grinning at him evilly, and he could only sweatdrop.

An hour later, Seiji and Touma were saddled and ready to leave. The only way for him to be able to remove his self appointed shame was to follow orders and to help any survivors. As they left, Soo-Yung and Yui are over standing above them, standing on the bridge between her room and her father's den. Soo-Yung looks over to see the leader standing there at the door of her father's room. And she could hear his thoughts, of fear for a certain young man. 'I only hope he is alright. If he dies, or has died because of this, we are all lost.' He looks up to see her looking at him and places a mental wall around him and leaves. Having thrown a mental wall around himself, Soo-Yung can't read his mind. She sighs and silently prays her brother can help some of the survivors.

It doesn't take long for the two of them to reach the village, and even a short distance away, they can smell the blood. Once at the village, they realize they had underestimated the humans. There were human bodies all over the streets, but there were vampire bodies, or what was left of their bodies, lying everywhere. They dismounted and began their search. It's almost dawn and the skies are getting lighter, yet they can feel the presence of a few vampires left. They have their weapons drawn and ready for a fight, if need be. They look through houses, in attics, in root cellars, other buildings, and there are no survivors to be found. Only one place left to be searched, the stable. So they decide to approach cautiously.

Then, less than 20 yards away, the doors swing open and at least eight vampires fly backwards away from the stable. Seiji and Touma can see they have not caught the attention of their opponants _yet_, and can only smell burned hair. A fire has started inside and a few vampires weren't fortunate enough to get away. They can see someone slowly walking out to attack the vampires. They can both see that they are afraid of the person coming out to face them. Then they can see a young man, about 20 years old, holding twin swords walking outside. They gasp, loudly, when they can clearly see that the young man has numerous cuts and wounds across his chest and arms. Blood is rolling down his face, into his eye, and down his neck. He's panting and grunting as he tries to stay on his feet. There's silence for a few seconds before the vampires charge at the human.

He's prepared for this attack and raises his swords and slashes two of the vampires. Unfortunately, the attack only wounds them, and has caused the human to lose some of his energy. That's when Seiji and Touma come to his rescue. Touma draws an arrow and lets loose, killing two vampires in one shot. Well, they should have known better than to attack one behind the other. Seiji is by the humans side and takes down one of the vampires that were injured. That only leaves five. They back up and wait for their prey to make a move. Touma, who just happens to be standing ten feet away from the human, can smell the blood. He knows, it won't be much longer til, the young man, dies from blood loss. Seiji, who is standing next to the young man, sees him stagger and pitch forward. He grabs him by the arm and hauls him back to his feet. It's only then that he notices the blood on the right side of his neck is from a bite. 'That's not good. I can only wonder how many times he was bitten.' he thinks to himself.

Vampires aren't known for their patience and since it was only a very short time before the sun came up, they began to panic. They lunged again. The human, who was barely still consious, stabbed the vampire that charged at him. And he vampire destagraded after being stabbed in the heart. Touma ran to the other side of the human And let loose another arrow, this one however, missed both of the vampires he had aimed for. Then a thought occured to him, as he called upon his ability to control wind. This managed to knock two of the four remaining vampires back. They were back in an instant though. That's when the human dropped both his swords and passed out. Touma catches him as he falls and can feel the young man feels much warmer than he should. It seems that some of the wounds are infected, that coupled with his cold sweat and shivering leads Touma to think that he won't survive the trip back to their clan. It's at that very second that Seiji calls upon his ability to control light. This makes the vampires to hold their arms over their faces and scream loudly in pain, because they are being burned.They almost jump back away from him.

"Only a few more minutes and the sun will be coming up over the horizon. Will you give up on this human, or will you fight and be killed by us and the sunlight?" Seiji says to them, almost daring them to stay and fight. They don't even have to think about the answer as a female answers for the group.

"Oh don't worry, _elf_, we'll let you have the human. We have no need to decrease our ranks any further. But know this, he won't survive. So, what's the point of even trying to help him. He will die just like everyone else in this village. And _we_ will meet again, so, until next time." And with that, they transform into bat-like creatures and fly away. Seiji turns to see Touma has picked the young man up. Touma looks at him and motions towards the horses. Seiji nods and watches as Touma heads back to the horses. Seiji looks back and sees the dropped swords. He sheathes his own no-datchi and picks the twin katana up. Less than a minute later, they are both on their horses, with the young man sitting in front of Touma. He has to wrap one of this arms around him so he won't fall off. As then take off in a dead run, the young man stirs, and Touma, being ever curious, asks if he's can hold on til they arrive back at their forest. The young man turns to face him and he can see his tiger blue eyes look glassy. His long black hair, which has been pulled back in to a ponytail that's resting over his left shoulder, is matted with blood. His voice is weak as he simply says,

"I, I th-think s-s-so. Yeah, I think I can hang on a little longer. Th-Thank you a-and your f-f-friend." and with that, he passes out again. As impossible as it sounds, less than 20 minutes later, they arrive back within the safety of their forest. Seiji dismounts and walks over to Touma and pulls the human off the horse. By now, Yui, Soo-Yung, and the leader, have reached the ground and are quickly moving towards them. Touma dismounts as the leader stops before them.

"Don't tell me this young man was the only survivor out of the entire village." Seiji nods and the leader looks at the young man. He lifts an eyelid and sees a blue eye. "Well, don't just hold him all day. Seiji, Touma, take him up stairs to the recovery room. Soo-Yung, Yui, find the head healer and have her brought to the recovery room. This boy needs to live. So he can tell us what happened to his fellow villagers." All four nod, run back up the stair and bridges, and do as they're told. But as Soo-Yung turns to follow Yui, she hears a stray thought coming from the leader's head. 'That boy needs to survive. Not just to tell us what happened, but also to fight against Arago. I recognize those eyes, they belong to Sanada Ryo. This generations fire child.' Soo-Yung gasps silently and almost runs in to a wall. She looks up to see Yui is staring at her with a look of curiosity, before they continue on their way.

That chapter was long. Sorry all Ryo fans, I didn't want to anger you, but I had to, how else is he supposed to get stronger. Don't worry, he will be just fine. Please review, but not hatefully please. Sorry for the sucky fight scene, that is what I need the most help writing. And I update some time this weekend. Once again, I would like to give full credit to **Mirror and Image** for their wonderful ideas. And for giving me permission to use some of those ideas to write this story. Thanks you two. Till next time, Ja Na.


	3. Dreams

Konnichiwa Minna-San. Starting with this chapter, I will not only place disclaimers, I will also place the credits, and my personal thanks. Okay here goes. **Disclaimers:** I don't own Samurai Troopers. I only own my five characters, Sakura, Soo-Yung, Mara, Kasumi, and Yui. **Credits:** Samurai Troopers are owned by Sunrise, Nagoya TV and is from the collective group Hajime Yatate and whoever else created it. I am using quite a few ideas from a couple of the stories by the wonderful writing duo **Mirror and Image**. The following ideas are from them: Seiji as an elf, Shin as a merperson, and maybe a few more further on down the line. If anyone has been to their website, you'll probally know what I mean. **Personal Thanks:** I really want to thank **Mirror and Image** for letting me borrow a few of their ideas. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And last, but not least, **_thank you to all of my wonderful readers_**. Without you reading this and reviewing, I would most likely just let this story go to pot, or something. Thank you, everyone, and I hope I don't disappoint any of you. Please let me know if you are disappointed though, okay? One final note, I will be trying to write a few things in Japanese. I have a very cool Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary, so if you can speak Japanese, please write me and tell me if I'm getting it right or not. Thanks again. And now on with the story.

The Magical Realm

Chapter 3 Dreams

(This will be a dreamscape, or a flashback in the form of a dream. The flashback itself will be written in regular print, while the additional part of the dream will be written in italics. After he wakes up, the writing will return to regular.)

It had been a normal day for Ryo. He, his future father-in-law, and several men from the village had been working in the woods around the forest, as it was their jobs as woodsmen, hunters, and trackers. Woodsmen were cutting down trees and removing brush, hunters were hunting for food and wild animals, and trackers were looking for signs of any wild creatures, such as vampires and trolls. Halfway through the day, things happened like normal, except, everything seemed to be going easier than normal. He had a feeling down deep in the pit of his stomach that something big was going to happen. Sometimes he disliked his 'gift of foresight'. Or 'premonition', as his now dead older sister had told him once before when he was still little and his family was still alive. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts, that he didn't hear his fiance, Sakura, walk over to the fallen tree he was standing next to. She heard him swear softly under his breath, but not in normal speach. Instead he was using the dead language of the Ancients, the language his ancestors and hers were desended from. So she calmly walked beside him and, being curious, asked him what was wrong.

"Do shita no, Ryo?" (What happened Ryo?) At the sound of her voice, he looked up from his musings. He knew he had heard her right, she was speaking in the Ancient language. He just didn't know why, had he been speaking it to himself when she walked up? He decided he had and chose to continue to speak in this language.

"Nan demo nai! Watashi wa ni tsuite kangaeru koto." (It's nothing! I was just thinking about, things.) He turns back to his work of moving a small pile of branches to a larger pile a few yards away. After he moves the pile, he turns back to Sakura and sees her worried face. "Shizuka ni naru. Daijobu. Yakusoku suru." (Calm down. Everything's okay. I promise you that.) Then chooses to switch to normal speech. "So, what's for lunch?" Sakura's expression switches from worry to amusement.

"Akira made lunch today." Sakara's little brother was very good when it came to cooking. Unlike his older sister, who was known to have made at least seven people sick because of her cooking. Ryo smiled and then said.

"That's wonderful. That means that I can eat without getting indigestion. Oowww!" Sakura hit his right arm with all she had. And, for a non-fighter, she could hit hard when she wanted to. The rest of the day went by without a single incident. It was only later, that night, that things took a turn for the worse. They had gone to bed after having a wonderful and much deserved dinner. It should be mentioned that Ryo lived with Sakura and her family since he was nine. The same time his parents and older sister had died. He slept in the small smoke house like building outside. It wasn't really a smoke house, rather it was like an extra room that wasn't attatched to the house. It was after 3 in the morning and Ryo kept seeing images of fire and dead bodies all around him. He also saw what appered to be two male elves.

One had a long sword and a mark that identified himself as the one who could manipulate light, the other had a bow and several arrows and a mark that identified him as the one who could manipulate wind. God had been good to these two. But the images continued to appear before him and the last thing he saw was Sakura being carried away by vampires. Vampires, that thought alone was enough to wake him from his slumber. He sat up breathing heavily and he heard a small noise. Looking to his left, he saw Akira holding a lantern up to look at Ryo. He could see that Akira was scared and, taking a quick look around, saw the bed of hay he slept on was disturbed, and knew that he must have cried out in his sleep. He was about to talk to Akira to calm him down, when a loud _woosh_ disturbed him and he immediately recognized the noise.'Vampires, and lots of them.'

Looking to Akira, he told him to wake his parents and Sakura and get them out to the room they were currently in. Akira nodded his head and causiously went back outside. Ryo had jumped out of his bed, put on his dark blue shirt on, making sure he could pull the right side down so he could get to the mark on his shoulder, if it became nessissary.(Spelling?) He already had his black pants on and his hair pulled into a ponytail, so all he needed to do was put his boots on and gather his swords. All this took about a minute but it seemed like an hour. Just as he had finished putting his shirt on and began putting on his boots, he heard the first screams, they had begun their attack. After getting his swords, he lifted the rug next to his bed and pulled on the ring sticking up from the floor. At that time, he heard Akira and Sakura running into the room. They shut the door as they entered and a loud _thud_ was heard on the other side. Appearently the vampire that been following them, had a little collision with the door, causing it to tremble and push forward against the combined weight of the two of them and the door. Ryo motioned for the two of them to hurry over and they ran with all the speed they could.

He lifted the door and the two siblings went down the hole with Akira's lantern leading the way. Ryo yelled for them to help the others before he shut the door, safely behind them. He replaced the rug and grabbed his swords. He was outside within seconds. He ran into the vampire that had run into the door a few seconds before and impaled him on one of his swords before he had a chance to recover. He ran to the middle of the village to see that he wasn't the only one to take down a vampire. He joined the fray and was fighting with all his might. It seems that it had been close to 4 in the morning when the onslaught had begun. And now over an hour had passed with Ryo still fighting. He had helped several people down holes similar to the one in Ryo's room. Dozens had been killed, but several others had gotten away without a scratch. He had slowly moved towards the stables when he heard Sakura. He jerked his head in her direction and cursed to himself as he knew what she was about to do. Even though she couldn't fight, she had deadly aim with her throwing knives. And proceded in taking four vampires down at once. He moved quickly to Sakura, grabbed her left arm with his right hand, and dragged her inside the stables.

"I told you to stay with Akira and help the others until you found your parents. Why do you always ignore me like this?" He almost snapped at her as they pulled the stable doors closed. She looked at him and he suddenly wanted to back away from her. The look on her face was one he had seen only a few times when her anger was far greater than his own. She was about to respond when they heard wings flapping over head. Ryo ran to one of the empty stalls, brushed away the hay, and jerked the ring up from the floor. Sakura was running towards him, when three vampires jumped down throught he roof. Ryo had no choice but to quickly shut the door to keep them from seeing the hole. Sakura was by his side now and had drawn more of her throwing knives as Ryo stepped protectively in front of her. One of the vampires, a female, looked at Ryo and said,

"Aawwww, look boys, he's protecting his sweetheart. How touching. Master wants her _alive_, and the boy is _mine_. Is that clear?" the other two silently nod. Then the next thing Sakura knows is two strong arms wrapped around her arms pinning them to her waist. She is lifted up and screams with all her might. Ryo moves to save her, but comes face to face with the second male vampire. Or rather, chest to claws. He tries not to scream as the claws dig into his chest. And raises his swords to strike his opponent. All he hits however is air. Four marks appear across his back again causing Ryo to restrain from screaming. This attack from behind makes him fall forward, where his forehead makes contact with the wooden gate of this particular stall. He begins gasping from all this pain. He gets up and swings again at his opponent to once again hit air, before more scratches appear on his arms. Then the next thing he knows is the female knocking his swords out of his hands, turning his head around and whispers in his ear,

"Calm yourself, my little man, my name is Sheena. You will soon be one of us and all the pain will cease." Then she pierces his neck and the cries he has held back, suddenly come forth, as he screams at the top of his lungs. He could withstand being beaten up, that was fine, but that bite, he would rather die suddenly than put up with this pain. It seemed to travel all the way from his neck to his head, his fingertips, and even down to his toes. His vision start to blur and with all the strength he could muster, pushed her off of himself. She looked at him amused and licked her lips. Then she said," Two more bites, a little of my blood to you and you will be one of us." Ryo barely sees the male vampire charge at him, but manages to trip him. Which was kind of a bad idea, because he tripped into the lantern Sakura had carried in there with them. And thus, a fire broke out and quickly spread. Ryo took this time to gather his swords and almost fell down as his sense of balance suddenly left him. The fire had caught the male vampire in its wake and after a short scream, all that was left was a terrible stink of burned flesh.

At the scream, several more vampires appear and try to attack Ryo. He's just barely able to count that are ten vampires before him. And his concentration starts to leave him. Then he sees a jug of oil.(Think of it as similar to gasoline.) Ryo dashes to it, uncaps it and flings the contents into the fire that has now surrounded them. The results being, the oil explodes, knocking eight of the vampires out the, once sealed, now open and burning, stable doors. That meant two of them had perished in the explosion. He hears them hiss at him as he slowly makes his way out into the open. Every move making him grunt and gasp in pain. Almost like he was panting to get air.

That's when he notices two male elves watching this with amazement. The vampires charge and he can feel his movements are slowing down. He manages to injure two of them, feeling his grip on his katana's loosen, before he sees the elves have decided to help him. Three are taken down by the elves and he suddenly sees the ground rising to meet him. A strong hand grabs a hold of his right arm, helping him back to his feet. Another attack and this time Ryo kills this one. He sees out of the corners of his eyes, that both elves are on either side of him. An arrow is fired, but it misses, before he sees a strong gust of wind knock two vampires away from them. He feels an eery calm fall over him before he blacks out.

The next thing he is aware of, is air blowing through his bloodied hair and clothes. He hears a male voice speaking calmly to him.

"Hey, are you going to make it to the forest? Do you think you can hold on until we get there?"

"I, I th-think s-s-so. Yeah, I think I can hang on a little longer. Th-thank you a-and your f-f-friend." _All he knows after that is darkness. Soon, however, he sees Sakura. He sees her as the vampire grabs her and hauls her upward. He hears her scream, he sees her look at him with fear, and she screams his name. "Ryo." He sees that he is unable to move from where he is standing. He hears an evil sounding feminine laugh just behind him. He's forcefully turned around to face the female vampire from earlier. She laughs again and stares at him. "Now you have lost the one person you truly love. What, oh, what, will you do? You can't do anything. You are unable to do anything. You belong to me now. And I will keep you for as long as I possibly can." He tries to move again, but he is still unable to move. She walks over to him and leans his head to the side. "NO!" he yells. "STOP! Please stop! Please leave me alone." The yell is weaker this time. She laughs at him and his begging. "You can't stop me from doing what I want to do. So just give up and relax. You'll just love the pain once you get used to it. Just relax." He tries to say something else, but all he can get out is a series of soft moans and pain filled grunts and gasps. "Sshhhh, it'll be okay. I'll be by your side the whole time. And you won't feel by your self anymore." Just to see him get angry, she rubs his hair. He jerks his head away and is rewarded with a sharp pain that moves all over his body. "I told you to relax." She leans his head back to expose the bite marks on his neck. She opens her mouth to re-bite him, when a strong light appears before the two of them. The female, Sheena, backs away quickly to get away from the light. He hears a strong, yet gentle voice speak to him. "Calm yourself young one. This is just a pain filled nightmare. It is not real. Now just calm yourself. This is just a dream. Nothing bad is happening to you. There is nothing to fear." Ryo closed his eyes and instantly relaxed, freeing himself from his pain. Everything he sees, including Sheena, disappears and all he knows is calm, peaceful darkness._

Meanwhile, back in the white recovery room in one of the many trees of the forest the elves call home. The young man relaxes and calms down. Touma and Seiji let go of his arms. For about twenty minutes, before now, they weretold to hold down the young man, because he began to thrash about and yell. Earlier the head healer had stripped him to his underclothes to get a better look at his wounds. After cleaning and bandaging his wounds, she had changed his clothes, dressing him in elven attire. She had noticed the mark on his shoulder andwent to tellthe leader. That had been three hours earlier. When she found the leader, she told him about the mark. He told her he had known about it and told her not to tell anyone else. She nodded and left before he went to the recovery room and had Seiji and Touma summoned to him. Then he spoke to them in the presence of only the head healer and the unconsious patient, no one else was around.

"As much as you two don't want to hear this, when that young man recovers, I want you to go with him. When you find two other unique individuals, you are to find Arago and attack him. You will win this time. I know it." Seiji, usually the quiet one of the duo, was the one to voice his opinion.

"High and Wise Leader, what is the meaning of your comment? You know we can't go against Arago without the fire child and the beings who can manipulate water and earth. It would be suicide to go against him without the others, and while we're on the subject, why should we travel with a human? You know humans are weak." He stopped when the leader looked at the two of them with an amused expression on his face. Touma's eyes lit up when an idea struck him.

"You can't possibly mean that _he_ is the fire child." The leader nodded. Seiji looked at him with shock in his eyes.

"So you're telling us that this _human_ is the fire child? That _he_ is the only one who can help us against Arago?" The leader nodded again, looking very pleased. "I don't believe you. Touma and I swore not to fight against Arago ever again. I refuse to believe you. I refuse to believe that a human, once again, has that kind of power." The leader's expression changed to sadness and regret. He walked over to Ryo, very carefully undid his shirt and rolled him over. He pulled the sleeve off his right arm and, pulling back a bandage, showed Touma and Seiji the fire mark on his shoulder blade. The two of them gasped and involuntarily step back. The sleeve was replaced on the arm and he was rolled over onto his back. The blankets were readjusted. The three of them stayed there until Ryo cried out and began thrashing. To keep from reopening any of his wounds, the leader had Seiji restrain Ryo's right arm and Touma restrain his left arm. The leader spent twenty minutes trying to calm Ryo with his voice. Finally he sighed, as he placed his first two fingers of his left hand to Ryo's head. Then he tried again, and almost immediately, he calmed down. The healer thanked him, Touma, and Seiji before turning to the window to the east. One of the curtains had caught fire, but it was quickly extinguished. The leader turned to the now standing Touma and Seiji.

"Now, do you believe what I told you?"

Phew, I think that was the longest chapter I've written before. Ryo's going to be fine, don't worry. Thanks once again to all my readers and especially **Mirror and Image**. From now on I will thank you two at the tops of my chapters. And if I translated my Japanese wrong, please write me and tell me. Sayonara.


	4. Painful Past

Konnichiwa, minna-san. Animefreak99-06 here. Yeah, I know, chapter 4 of this story was nowhere in sight. Well, here it is, I hope you like it. Oh, and if the story seems slow, well, that's because it is. Sorry, my stories are like that. And, if anyone out there is reading this story, please write a review and tell me what you think, I'm lonely without reviews. Not, I just really like people's input on things. **Disclaimers:** I don't own Samurai Troopers. I only own my own characters. **Credits:** Samurai Troopers belong to Sunrise and everyone else I'm to lazy to list. The following ideas are from the wonderful writing duo **Mirror and Image**, without their permission, I wouldn't be writing this story, ideas: Seiji as an elf, Shin as a merman, Shiten as a kitsune, and others that have yet to appear in this story. **Personal Thanks:** first and for most I wish to thank **Mirror and Image** for their wonderful stories and for being so kind and considerate to let me borrow a few of their ideas. Domo Arigato Gozimasu! And I wish to thank all my wonderful readers. Without your support, this story would just fester and die. Thank you everyone, I _extremely _appreciate your support. This chapter and the next few are going to be slow, just so you know.

The Magical Realm

Chapter 4 Painful Past

He was aware of black, and for what seemed like the longest time, that was all he saw. Then the next thing he was aware of was his older sister's voice calling to him. 'Kira? But she's dead. What's going on here?' He opens his eyes too see he is standing up near a forest, still wearing his clothes from the night before, looks up, and sees Kira standing next to him. 'She looks the same way she did before she died.' She stands there for a few seconds, before she giggles mischeviously to herself. And starts to creep slowly towards a tall tree. Ryo looks at the tree and recognizes it as the old maple tree as the one behind his old home. Kira continues to creep to the tree, and Ryo begins to wonder why. Then he blinks and sees someone is laying down beneath the tree. 'Wait, she's creeping up on someone? What is she doing? Unless... This whole scene seems familiar. So what the.. Oh no. I'm seeing an image from the past.' Kira stops her creeping as she gets within ten feet from the tree. Ryo gasps as he finally recognizes who's under the tree, himself as a child. Kira takes a deep breath and then yells,

"WAKE UP, SANADA RYO!" Ryo winces as he remembers this and sees his younger self wake up and nearly jump up into the tree. (Like those old cartoons where the character is asleep and instantly jumps several feet into the air.) Kira is holding her sides as she laughs as hard and as loud as she can. Young Ryo holds one hand to his chest as he tries to reclaim his lost breath. Once that was accomplished, he scowls at his older sister, and chooses to voice his opinion of his sister.

"Onee-san, how could you be so cruel like that? You almost gave me a heart attack. You're older than me, you should be mature enough to know not to do that." Then he lowers his head and looks like he might cry. Kira has stopped laughing by now and her expression has changed from mischevious laughter to regret. She extends her hand to her brother, an offering to help him up. He looks up at her then quickly looks back to the ground. Adult Ryo is still standing there, shakes his head, and sighs. 'Kira really _did_ scare me, but she was just joking. Still, she was just getting me back for what I had done to her and Himeno earlier that day. Of course, I didn't know _that_ at the time.' Turning his thoughts back to the scene unfolding before him, adult Ryo watches as Kira helps his younger self up and hugs him. He can't hear what she's telling him, but he certainly remembers it. _'Ryo, you know I would never do anything to hurt your feelings or scare you. You're my only remaining brother, and I love you. I just saw you asleep out here and thought I could get back at you for throwing water on me and Himeno earlier today. And I know you didn't do it on purpose, but since _when_ has stopped me from getting revenge? I'm sorry, Ryo, it won't happen again, I promise.'_ Young Ryo smiles a cute little smile, that only cute nine year olds can. And he and Kira head back to their home, young Ryo running inside the house. Kira ruffles his hair as he passes and looks a little sad as she slowly walks behind her brother. Adult Ryo notices this and gasps before turning his head away in sadness. 'Kira knew what was going to happen. That's why she told me she loved me and that she wouldn't hurt me again. She knew she was going to die that night.' Adult Ryo can feel a tear falling down his face and he quickly wipes it away. 'If I'm seeing images from the past, it's only going to get worse from here.'

He blinks and sees his younger self sitting at the table eating with the rest of his family. He sees himself with his mother, his father, Kira and Himeno, his younger sister. After dinner has been eaten, his mother gathers the dishes and takes them to the sink. She grabs the poker, carefully pulls the out the metal arm that's holding a big pot, and, using her apron as a folded towel, lifts the handle of the pot off the arm. She pushes the arm back into the firepit, then moves back to the sink before slowly pouring the very warm water into the sink. (Am I weird or what? If you can't imagine the action with the pot, it's similar to the action Snow White uses to keep her food from boiling over in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. Don't ask, that's all I could think of.)

Ryo sees the steam rising from the water and realizes, for the hundredth time, that his mother's hands must have been immune to heat. Either that, or she burned her hands on a daily basis. He sighed when it occured to him that he couldn't remember wether her hands were bandaged or not. She grabs the soap and begins to hum as she dunks her hands into the water. Kira and Himeno stay in the kitchen to help their mother clean. Ryo and his father have departed the kitchen and are now in the living room. His father sits down in a chair and picks up a small piece of wood before withdrawing his knife.

Ryo has left the living room and goes into his room, grabs his boots, and a small round disk looking thing on a string. He puts the thing around his neck and the disk now looks like an odd looking pendant. He walks back to the living room and puts his boots on. By now Himeno and Kira have entered, leaving their mother to finish cleaning. Well, actually, she shooed them out of the kitchen. (Ryo has seen all of this as it's happening. He's currently in the living room.) They see young Ryo going towards the door and tell him to wait. Ryo's father tells Himeno that she's too little to go outside at night. She pouts, but listens to him. Kira runs to her room, grabs her boots, and runs back to the door. After putting them on, she and young Ryo say that they'll be back shortly and walk out the front door. Adult Ryo is still in the living room and no sooner does the door shut, then his mother walks into the room. She stares at the door and sighs. His father stops whitiling(sp?) and looks at her. Himeno has gone to the room she shares with her older sister. Ryo sees his parents are looking at each other before his mother walks over to her husband.

"What do you know, Suki? What's going to happen tonight?" She shakes her head as she tells him what she knows.

"I fear our two youngest will be lost to us tonight. One to be forced to help the shadows, or Arago and his minions. And the other will lose all, but his determination and courage." 'Wait a minute, what's all this about? Did mother know about this as well? Of course, it's from her that we get the ability to see images of the past, present, and the past. Well, in all honesty, we have this ability because God gave it to us. But mother was the one who taught us.'

"What do you mean, 'our two youngest will be lost to us'?"

"Himeno will be taken and Ryo will lose all else he holds dear to him."

"We won't let anyone get Himeno. I mean the only way they can get her is if we're... No. You mean, we're gonna...?" Yuki nods "And Kira too?" she nods again "And she knows, doesn't she?" nod " That explains why she went with Ryo to visit her grandmother's grave." Yuki nods one more time, before she turns to walk back into the kitchen. Ryo's father sighs sadly before returning to whitiling. Adult Ryo blinks and sees his young self and Kira at his grandmother's grave.

"Grandmother would be very happy if she saw your hair as long as it is." His hair isn't that long, but it is long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail. Young Ryo sticks his tongue out at Kira and she laughs at him, like she always does. 'We loved each other a lot. We argued like other families, but mostly when we argued, it was over something that was or wasn't safe for us. Such arguements over toys and such could lead to injuries, but we still loved each other.' Adult Ryo blinks again and sees his younger self tossing and turning in his sleep, while whimpering. He's having a premonition dream. Then he springs forward in his bed. A second later, his eyes are open and he's shaking. He hears a loud roar coming from outside and he stops shaking. He looks up at the window in his room. He quickly gets up and walks over to the window. He hears the roar again and he begins to look around outside. He knows of several animals and creatures that roar like that.

He stands still and closes his eyes. He tries to locate the source of the roar, before identifying a large white tiger named Byakuen as the source. Ryo relaxes as he opens his eyes,only to panic as he suddenly understands what Byakuen has told him. Trolls are approaching, at least eight and they look hungry. Ryo knows humans are the fourth youngest, with vampires as the third youngest. That means trolls are second youngest and werewolves are the youngest. Trolls are the much younger cousin of gargoyles, being that trolls are said to be born from the mountains, like gargoyles. However, they appear to be rock looking creatures that always keep the same appearance. They however are only able to move at night time, and the reason being that they somehow become solid stone in the light of the day. And unlike their older cousins, trolls are known for being very violent. Starting fires, destroying homes, eating farm animals, and sometimes humans. That's right, very dangerous, and eight of them were coming towards their home. Adult Ryo sees his younger self slowly back away from the window, before turning and running to his parents room. 'Even if mother, father and Kira knew, they were still going to fight.'

He blinks again and finds himself outside standing on the hill some distance form the house. He senses someone behind him and he sees someone dressed in a cape standing there watching the house. The figure pushes his hood back and Ryo sees a messy looking mop of blonde hair. On the neck of this handsome looking elf is a mark that Ryo uses to identifiy that this elf is the one who can manipulate light. 'Wait, I met this elf as a child?' a sharp whistle causes the elf to turn around and Ryo sees another elf walking up the other side of the hill.

"High and Wise Leader, why have you bought me here? This is the farm of a human family. So, why not bring one of your sons, or even Touma instead of me."

"Seiji, I have my reasons for bringing you here. But for the time being, I wish to keep them secret." Seiji looks down at the ground.

"I'm truly sorry my leader. I am deeply embarassed by my words. I was only curious. I didn't mean to question you." The leader places his right hand on Seiji's left shoulder and laughs. A noise causes the two of them to look down at the house. Two young children come running out and Ryo realizes the children are his younger self and Kira. Now he was a little confused as to why he saw this after he saw the image of Byakuen warning him of the trolls. Another blink and Ryo sees that his mother is running his younger self to the kitchen. She gives him his twin swords and a small bag of clothes before she pushes him into a cabinet. She tells him everything will be okay, and to stay in there until the rustling noises have died down before opening the door and running with all he had.

(Another thing about trolls, they are slow runners and get slower as the sun comes up.) She makes him promise and then tells him she and the others all love him.Young Ryo starts to cry and adult Ryo sadly watches as his mother and father try to stand up to the trolls. They don't last long and as their bodies hit the floor, Kira comes running in the kitchen and swings her fans at them. She lasts long enough to draw their attention away from the kitchen. Then out of nowhere a vampire comes and bites her. Adult Ryo is shocked as he sees this. He knew his parents were killed by trolls, but he thought trolls killed Kira as well. Now he knew better, it was a vampire that killed his sister.

As Kira is trying to keep from crying out at the intense pain, a scream alerts the trolls to another part of the kitchen. Kira, in her struggles, and in an effort to keep them from finding Himeno, knocks over a lantern. And within a few minutes the entire house is in flames. The vampire drops Kira in order to get out of the house. No sooner does the fire start to spread, does one of the Trolls knocks the big heavy metal pot in front of the cabinet that Ryo's hiding in, effectively blocking him in. The trolls have found the source of the scream and just as they're about to kill Himeno, the vampire stops them, telling them, she will be of good use to them. He grabs her and flies out the ceiling. Adult Ryo sees this and is sad that Himeno was captured because she could see things, like her mother and older siblings. He's also happy because she could still be alive.

Then he hears a loud banging and remembers that his younger self is still stuck in the cabinet. Ryo remembers how he almost didn't get out. But he sees the pot slide out of the way of doors and a small nine year old boy emerges and stands up. He turns to run out the house when he sees his dead parents. He closes his eyes as a few tears slide down his face, before he runs out of the house. He realizes he has broken his promise, but he's sure that his mother would understand. He takes a quick look at his house before he runs with all his might. It's only then that he notices it's raining very hard and has been for at least fifteen minutes. Ryo is standing outside watching his younger self try to hold on to everything and run at the same time. He hears something and looks up to see Byakuen has come to his rescue.

He climbs up on Byakuen's back and holds on tightly as Byakuen runs away from the farm house. Adult Ryo sees that the rain has let up, but is still coming down. In a matter of what seems like a few seconds to adult Ryo, it had been a few hours to young Ryo. Young Ryo and Byakuen had been running deeper and deeper into the forest all this time, and back in order to get away from trolls, werewolves and other such creatures. Well, young Ryo was so shocked at what he had seen, he forgot his mother had given him a small cloak. Adult Ryo could see what was happening and he knew his younger self was going to pass out. And sure enough, young Ryo slide off Byakuen's back. The tiger grabbed the young boy's leg and carefully pulled him towards a small cave. Which happened to be where they were heading anyway. Byakuen had been trying to take Ryo somewhere same, but they kept getting cut off, so he headed to the last safe place to take the boy. Adult Ryo saw the cave enterance and could just barely make out a figure in the shadows. Byakuen stopped pulling young Ryo and looked up to see who was there to stop them this time. After a few seconds, Byakuen turned back to Ryo and continued to pull him in the cave.

Another blink and Ryo saw his young self laying on Byakuen's side, and his face is a slight pink. He's in front of a small fire and has his cloak spread over him like a blanket. He hears a noise and sees someone walking towards his younger self. As the figure comes into the light of the fire, adult Ryo identifies him as the leader. 'He's carrying a bowl, it looks like.' As he reaches young Ryo, he sits down on the cave floor, placing the bowl beside him. He pulls a folded piece of cloth out of the bowl and rings it out. 'The bowl has _water_ in it?' He places the cloth on young Ryo's fore head, causing him to stir. He blinks his eyes open, trying to clear his vision. When he spots the elfen leader, he immediately tries to take offense. But, when he tries to sit up, he gets dizzy, and falls back down, waking Byakuen in the process.

The elf laughs at him and explains to him who he is. When Ryo doesn't believe him, he explains that if he wanted to hurt Ryo, he would only have to leave him where he was. And besides, Byakuen would have tried to attack him. Ryo accepted this and started to fight sleep, but the High and Wise Leader would have none of that. He placed the first fingers of his right hand to Ryo's fore head. Less then a few seconds go by before he is asleep. The next blink and adult Ryo saw his younger self waking up in Sakura's parents home. When he told them what had happened, they told him that they already knew and, to the best of their ability, had buried the bodies of his family members. He was told that he was going to stay with them from now on.

Adult Ryo blinked one last time and saw himself standing on the balcony of a room in a forest. 'This hasn't happened. It must be a premonition of something yet to come.'

And that's all for now folks. Yeah, I know, a cliffhanger. Well, I'm really sorry. And as for the time of each of these different scenes: Scene 1 was late evening, around sunset. Scenes 2 & 4 are about 9:00pm or so. Scene 3 is 4:30am. Scene 5 is about 5:15am. Scene 6 is about 8:00am. Scene 7 is about 10:00am. Scene 8 is a week later at about 4:30pm. And scene 9 is a few days off at around 11:45am. Oh, and one more thing, the past scenes and the setting for this story are late spring. Don't worry, Ryo will be okay. And Seiji and Touma will be seen again in the next chapter. Ja Na.


	5. Up and About

Hey everyone, I'm back. You know the drill. **Disclaimers:** I do not own Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, or Ronin Warriors either. **Credits:** Yoriden Samurai Troopers is owned by Sunrise, Nagoya TV, Hajime Yatate. Ronin Warriors is owned, or at least aired, by Graz and whoever else. The following ideas are originally from the wonderful writing duo **Mirror and Image**: Seiji as an elf, Shin as a merman, Shuten as a kitsune and others yet to come. **Personal Thanks:** I owe a world of thanks to **Mirror and Image**, for not for their permission, this story wouldn't have been created. And a big thanks to all my awesome readers. I really appreciate all that you guys do for me. As promised, Seiji and Touma are in this chapter. And a word of warning, Touma fans, please don't hate me. I kinda made Touma act like a jerk, at least towards Ryo. This will last the next few chapters, or until Shin joins them. After that, Touma will become nicer towards everyone. And, now, on with the story.

The Magical Realm

Chapter 5 Up and About

It took about two days for him to begin to regain conciousness. As Ryo began to wake up, he felt a hand on his forehead. The hand emits a strange, warm sensation. He blinks, opening and closing his eyes quickly, and sees a blonde headed elf standing over him. After a few seconds, the hand was removed. Ryo hears soft footsteps, a tired sigh and a loud plop, which suddenly catches his attention. He turns his head to see the elf is sitting in a chair to the right of him, at least four or five feet away from him. He's holding his head, rubbing his temples, almost as if he was very tired.

When Ryo began to speak, he noticed he could only see through his left eye. He started to panic and lifts his hands to his eye. He feels cloth and let out a startled gasp. The elf lifts his head up in the direction of the bed. A quick look reveals a freaked out expression on the human's face. He closes his eyes and clears his throat, which causes Ryo to look at him. The first thing Ryo notices is the mark that clearly identifies the elf as the one who can manipulate light. He opens his blue eyes, or so Ryo assumes, because he can only see one of the elfs eyes, the other hidden behind his hair.

"Easy now. Your eye wasn't damaged, if that's what you were thinking. The bandage was placed over your eyebrow to keep infection out of the gash. The bandage is just covering your eye as well." He sighed and leaned back. "The bandage can be removed when ever you want it removed." Seiji said before closing his eyes again. Ryo thought the elf looked as if he hadn't slept in a few days. He had a funny feeling it was because of him. He began to feel guilty, so he decided he needed to apologize. He turned his gaze to the ceiling before he began to talk.

"I'd like to thank you for saving my life. You and your friend both deserve to be thanked. I'm very thankful. And I really want to thank you for healing the wound on my brow." At this Seiji opened his eyes and turned his head towards the human. "When things go back to normal, if you ever need anything, all you need to do is ask for Sanada Ryo. It _is_ the least I can do for you and your friend." Ryo reached his hand up and began to pull the bandage off of his eye. When he succeded, he had to squint his eyes to get both of them readjusted to the light that was now shining through the only window that didn't have curtains. 'That's strange. Why would they leave one window bare like that?' Ryo thought to himself. He felt himself getting sleepy again, but he as he felt himself starting to drift off again, the elf spoke again.

"I have to say, that you're a very polite person, Sanada Ryo. If you need anything while you're here, please don't hesitate to ask for Date Seiji. I would be glad to help in any way that I can." And with that, Ryo was asleep again. Seiji couldn't help smiling a little smile. This was the _first_ human that had a polite personality that Seiji had _ever_ come across. Seiji was still smiling to himself when he heard someone entering. Thinking it was the head healer, he turned to tell her the good news. Instead it was Touma who had entered. Touma looked furious, and Seiji could tell he must have overheard the little conversation. His smile turned into a frown, when Touma kept his gaze upon Ryo. He then turned his gaze upon the table on the left side of Ryo's bed. (Opposite side Seiji's on.)

"I still can't believe that a human is the fire child this time. Whatever. It's not like I care. I'm not traveling with him when he leaves though. I don't care if the 'High and Wise Leader' gets angry, I don't trust humans. Humans are to weak. They have no self control. Besides, it's not like we can defeat Arago. We tried before and failed, so who's to say we can defeat him anyway? Who's to say we can even find the other two?" At this Touma walks over to the table and picks up the strange looking necklace with the disk. "He doesn't even know who he ancesters were. Great, this just keeps getting better and better." Touma places the necklace back on the table and starts to walk out the door. As he walks past Seiji, his arm is grabbed and held. Touma looks at Seiji to ask what has caused this change in emotions, when he sees Seiji's eyes have taken on an angry look. Touma, usually the more expressive one of the two, looks very stunned and even a little nervous.

"First of all _Touma, Warrior of Wind_. God has chosen a human, _this_ human, to be the fire child of this generation. Second of all, I really am shocked that you would chose to defy the 'Leader', especially since you _are_ related to him. As for the trusting humans, you don't have to _trust_ humans, as long as you are open to what they go through on a daily basis and at least respect what they do. Thirdly, who's to say that this fire child has more self control then you or me. He was able to catch the curtains on fire, which the last fire child we fought alongside, couldn't even ignite the material. Ryo is much stronger than that, as well as being able to withstand vampires. Fourth of all, the 'Leader' said that Ryo has the ability to see images of the future, so maybe _he_ can lead _us_ to the other two. I seriously think we _can_ defeat Arago this time. All we have to remember is Badamon, and maybe, distroy him first. Lastly, wether he knows about his ancesters or not, doesn't matter, at least not to us. Oh, and one more thing, before you begin to feel like I've betrayed you, I haven't. I'm just trying to stand up for him, that's all.", and with that, Seiji turns Touma's arm lose. Touma looks at him with a slightly put out expression on his face, but it quickly disappears and he shakes his head. 'Leave it to Seiji to make me feel guilty.' And with that he leaves. Seiji closes his eyes and falls asleep.

Ryo begins to have a nightmare._ Darkness, that's all he sees around him, until he sees four faces around him. One face changes from a fox to a tall, strong looking young man with long red hair. Two green eyes stare at him with, what looks like, a look of revenge. The next looks like a spider that turns into a shorter, thinner young man with wavy, medium length purple hair. He stare at Ryo with only one eye, the other covered by an eyepatch. Ryo hears a hiss coming from behind him, he turns to see a long snake, which in turn, transforms into a well built young man with short green hair and big eyes with small pupils. A final form, that of a werewolf looking creature, appears before Ryo. The creature changes shape into another well built young man with blue hair and dark brown eyes. Strangely he had an intersecting (cross shaped) scar on the left side of his face. The four of them are glaring evilly at Ryo. Ryo feels like he's not getting air. He hears a voice telling him that he won't be able to find the other two, let alone help them. Then he sees an image of a young merman, with short brown hair and blue eyes, swimming through the water. This image changes to a strange blue-gray headed gargoyle with blue eyes flying through the air at night. This image changes to show Ryo the merman is now lying on the ground and has appearently died from being out of the water to long. Close to him is the body of a human with blue-grey hair and blue eyes, he has an arrow through his heart as he lies on the ground looking up at the sun of early afternoon. At this Ryo screams._

A few seconds later, Ryo realizes he's gasping for breath. As he tries to calm his breathing, he hears someone talking to him. Or he thinks someone's talking to him, since the person seems to be talking to him in another language. He lifts his head to see a blonde headed female elf trying to talk to him. He sees the worry in her face and tries to think of a way to communicate with her, when Seiji walks into the room and begins to talk to the female. After a minute of talking, Seiji turns to Ryo and seemingly translates.

"Ryo this is the head healer and she wanted to know if are alright. She says she was getting ready to leave when you tensed up and then screamed. What happened?"

"I'm alright. I had a really bad dream, that's all. Can you tell her I just had a bad dream?" Seiji nodded and translated the message for the head healer. She seemed relieved, but then her face seemed to show she was curious about his dream.

"She says she is relieved, but she wants to know what you could have dreamt about to make you scream?" Ryo shifted in his bed before he said,

"It's a long story and I kinda don't want to talk about it. Sorry, it's just kinda personal." Seiji translates and the head healer nods her head and leaves. Seiji sences Ryo is really terrified and is trying to stay calm. So Seiji lets him sit there thinking to himself. He sits down in the chair he sat in earlier. Ryo is still sitting in bed playing with the edge of the blanket. Just as he begins to tell Seiji something, a calmer looking Touma knocks on the door and walks in. He looks at Seiji then Ryo, before he closes his eyes and begins to talk.

"The 'High and Wise Leader' wants to speak to you once the head healer has declared that you can get up and walk around. Since it seems that your wounds are healing pretty fast, she may give you the good news tomorrow. Since we don't want to press our luck, it would be best for you to stay in bed til then." And with that Touma turns around and walks back out the door.

"Does he always try to make humans feel small in his presence? I was raised to be polite and respect my elders, but I wasn't raised to take slack off of anybody. Be they human, elf, gargoyle, whatever, I don't take any slack off of anybody." Ryo says while clearly trying to keep himself from exploding. Seiji can only look on in mild shock to see Ryo's mood has gone from fear to anger in mere seconds. 'This can only get more interesting.' Seiji thinks to him self with a small smile. A quick look from Ryo has Seiji nodding his head in response to Ryo's question. Ryo's answer is a small growling sound, which causes Seiji to sweatdrop.

The next day Ryo was given permission to get out of bed. He stumbled at first, but managed to catch himself. All of this was, of course, after changing back to his own clothes, which have been repaired, and eating. He walked over to the door on the opposite side of the room and opened it. Finding it led to a balcony, he walks out onto it. He leans against the rail with his forearms.(His forearms are resting on the rail. Kinda like his elbows are resting on the railing, except it's his forearms.) He interlaces his fingers as he stands there looking around him in awe. All around him are tall magnificent trees with small houses and smaller rooms built into and on the branches, with only wooden and rope bridges. Then he remembers his dreams, in one of them he was standing in this same exact spot, looking at something. He looked forward and saw a young woman with really short, pale purple hair starting to walk across a bridge. She was dressed in a dark purple dress. She had a quiver full of arrows on her back and was carring a bow in her hand.. He continued to watch her cross, until he started to feel lightheaded. He closed his eyes as pain shoots through his head.

_All he sees for a second is the calm scene he saw just before he felt his 'premonition'. A few seconds later, however has Ryo seeing elves running across the bridges as something, ignites the houses. But what could light the houses with fire like that? A shadow passes over and Ryo figures out what it is. A dragon, or at least it was a dragon. Now it's changing it's shape, it's a shapeshifter. There are several of them all over the place. Trees are burning, elves are being killed and falling from the trees, bridges are unuseable. And in the midst of it all, the female elf with short purple hair has been captured, just like Sakura. _'Sakura?' Ryo thinks to himself before seeing her being taken by vampires. Then he calls her name."Sakura. Sakura!"

Then Ryo opens his eyes to find himself gasping for breath. He has seen images like that ever since he was little. And he had a feeling that if he didn't leave soon, that is exactly what would happen. He sighed, he truly didn't know what to do, except hope and pray, that things would turn out alright. Then he started to try unsuccessfully to scratch his back, again his mood changed within an instant from sad, fearful, and depressed to itchy and slightly agrivated. He sighed again, well things happen for a reason. He figured it was a good thing, since the scratch marks on his back were healing, but they still itched. He turned around and walked back into the room. He sat down on the bed, facing out the still open balcony doors, giving up entirely on scratching. Looking around the room, his eyes landed on a small pouch sitting on the table. Getting up, he walked over to the table and picked up the pouch.

Upon opening the pouch, Ryo found, to his surprise, his necklace and hair tie. Within the minute he had his hair tied back and was now hiding the disk of his necklace of the under his shirt. As he was about to sit back down, he heard the other door open and looked up to see Touma and Seiji enter. Touma looked at him and very plainly say,

"Come with us." Ryo looked him straight in the eye and almost growled at him. Touma turned back towards the door and walked out. Ryo had to focus on not trying to attack Touma, as he calmly walked over to the door. Seiji waited until Ryo had left to walk out the door and closed it. They walked for what seemed like half an hour, walking across hallways, and then crossing several bridges before coming to their destination. Once there, the 'Leader' talked to Ryo for awhile before coming to the conclusion that Ryo, Touma, and Seiji were to travel together and look for the other two elemental users. To say Touma was furious, was an understatement.

Seiji thought back a few days and remembered when he had thought ill of humans and now had changed his mind. He thought that if Touma traveled with Ryo, maybe he would change his mind as well. From the look of things at this moment, however it didn't look like Touma wanted to change his mind. The 'Leader' was the one who had final say in the matter, though and won the argument. As his final declaration, Seiji and Touma were to travel with Ryo back to his village while he gathered whatever he would need and then proceed to find the other two. From there, they would have to fight and defeat Arago, hopefully. They were to ride out early the next morning. As they were dismissed, Touma stared angrily at Ryo and it was only Seiji grabbing Ryo's arm and leading him back to his room that kept him from getting hurt.

Again I'm so sorry all Touma fans, but when I thought of this story, I saw him as being a total jerk. Don't worry, his attitude will get better, just not for a few chapters. Thanks a bunch, and let me know how you liked the update, please? Ja Na.


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